as i see it - Pt. IV

[phantom22]

Not only for writers, Ara.

 

Do you think that Manoogian, Kerkorian, Cafesjian, Shakarian, etc. etc. would have become successful if they had directed their business toward an Armenian clientele. They would have starved.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, August 25, 2005

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One of my problems is my total inability to communicate with teenage hooligans or, for that matter, adults, or even seniors who happen to be clear-cut cases of arrested development.

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An Armenian editor from New York recently visited the editorial office of another Armenian paper in Paris and was given such an unfriendly reception that it bordered on the hostile. I know now why we have no use for critics and dissidents: we don’t need them because every Armenian is another’s critic and dissident. What we need now is peacemakers, negotiators, compromisers, harmonizers, and coordinators.

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We said “Yes, sir!” to sultans and Stalin for almost 700 years; and we now compensate by saying “No, sir!” – but only to our fellow Armenians.

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I once met a Turkish student who spoke Armenian fluently but identified herself as a Turk. She probably thought she would get more respect that way.

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An Armenian will criticize a writer for repeating himself and a speechifier, sermonizer, or propagandist for not repeating himself.

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There seems to be an unspoken theory among us that says, you can tell how good an Armenian is by how much he hates Turks.

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When confronted with the issue of hating Turks, an Armenian will rationalize it by saying, “I don’t hate them; I just want them to acknowledge the Genocide.” Which raises the following questions: What if being dependent on Turkish justice is almost like being a subject of the Ottoman Empire? What if by rationalizing our hatred of Turks we also rationalize our intolerance of fellow Armenians? What if our hatred pollutes our relations with our fellow men? What if Gandhi was right when he said, “Hatred harms the hater more than those he hates”?

*

And if you were to ask me: “What about you? Don’t you hate anybody?” My answer would be, “Of course I do! I was born and raised as an Armenian.”

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[ara baliozian]

Not only for writers, Ara.

 

Do you think that Manoogian, Kerkorian, Cafesjian, Shakarian, etc. etc. would have become successful if they had directed their business toward an Armenian clientele. They would have starved.

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businessmen go where the money is;

writers don't.

that's because literature is not business.

one does not go into it to make money..../ ara

[phantom22]

Yet writers do want to be read and appreciated, and sometimes they make money also.

 

Dickran Kouyoumjian (Michael Arlen) was widely read and made money, although he rejected his Armenian heritage.

 

Willie Saroyan was widely read and made money, was involved in Armenian affairs, visited Armenia and wrote Armenian-related stories but the only woman he ever married (twice) was a Jew. She had two children with him and one with her next husband, actor Waler Matthau.

Edited August 25, 2005 by phantom22

[ara baliozian]

Friday, August 26, 2005

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Armenian proverb: “Better the slave of a wise man than the master of a fool.”

*

Denis Donikian: “Dissent is not so much a form of political opposition as a defense of values that we all share.”

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We have no use for human rights because our own rights were violated by a long line of tyrants. We have no use for civilized conduct either because we were ruled by barbarians. You may now guess the identity of our role models.

*

The very same people who have made Turkish barbarism their central concern see nothing inconsistent in adopting their methods, and the only reason they don’t massacre is that it is against the law. But the moment the law is relaxed in their favor, as it happened in the Soviet era, they will not hesitate to be their brothers’ executioners.

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Whenever a fellow Armenian calls me a brother I start wondering who is Cain and who is Abel.

*

There is a Cain and Abel in all of us, but we prefer to parade as Abels and to assign the role of Cain to anyone who dares to disagree with us. We thus view dissent and criticism as activities peculiar to the Cains of this world even as we ourselves violate their fundamental human right of free speech.

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[ara baliozian]

Yet writers do want to be read and appreciated, and sometimes they make money also.

 

Dickran Kouyoumjian (Michael Arlen) was widely read and made money, although he rejected his Armenian heritage.

 

Willie Saroyan was widely read and made money, was involved in Armenian affairs, visited Armenia and wrote Armenian-related stories but the only woman he ever married (twice) was a Jew. She had two children with him and one with her next husband, actor Waler Matthau.

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Arlen and Saroyan were lucky but even their luck ran out after a while.

also, they may be seen as exceptions to the rule: my guess is a thousand Armenian writers wanted to be like them but none made it.

but that's irrelevant....

a true writer speaks his mind even when he is neither appreciated nor read; even when he faces exile, imprisonment , starvation and execution. / ara

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, August 27, 2005

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"You are a dishonest man, a bad writer, and a worse Armenian," a reader, himself a poet, informs me. To which I can only say: "I am sure the nation will be eternally grateful to you if you reject me as a role model."

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Jewish saying: "Fools who hide their ignorance are wiser than the wise who parade their knowledge."

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Denis Donikian: "If you want to solve our problems, share your money not your ideas."

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Armenian proverb: "Neither candle not incense can open a path to heaven."

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All politicians are atheists, including those who believe in god.

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Some people are so outrageously wrong that they don't have to be corrected; sooner or later life, facts, the reality principle will speak to them much louder than any logical argument or appeal to common sense.

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[ara baliozian]

Sunday, August 28, 2005

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If you read a scholarly essay or book on human nature that begins with the words, “Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that…” you can be sure you are in good hands.

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Armenians enjoy reading about Turks because they love to hate.

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The nation that hates together stays together.

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A man is not necessarily good if he lacks the means to do evil.

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I’d rather be wrong as a human being than right as a dupe.

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Free speech does not say “Shut-up because I know better,” or “because I am somebody and you are nobody!”

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There are many known cures for dandruff, the guillotine is not one of them.

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I write in the name of all those writers who were silenced or slaughtered by tyrants.

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A woman may be a mystery to men, among them Freud, but to other women she is a cliché. Which may suggest that mysteries too, like so much else in life, are in the eye of the beholder.

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“Too much reading will ruin him,” a parish priest kept warning my parents, and he was right because to him success meant being a bishop.

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Freedom of the press does not mean the printing of agreeable lies but of disagreeable truths.

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Poverty, real poverty is not life in the slums and dinners of macaroni and cheese, but the degradation one must suffer in order to obtain these luxuries.

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If wisdom were a religion, fools and dupes could not be converted, which means there wouldn’t be enough converts even for a single congregation.

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[ara baliozian]

Monday, August 29, 2005

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All our controversies amount to bickering while the barn is burning.

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Armenians love to see their names in the paper. Which is why our weeklies drop names as profusely as a flock of pigeons on ex-lax.

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The assertion “I am better than you” convinced no one. And yet, more often than not, that’s exactly what our so-called pundits do: they assert moral superiority. “Behold the Turk, the lowest scum on earth; and “Behold the Armenian, the noblest specimen of humanity!”

*

Lately there has been some talk about Armenian pimps and prostitutes from the Homeland operating in foreign countries. It is true that we in the diaspora don’t have that problem but not because we are morally superior but because we are not driven by unemployment, destitution, hunger, and a power structure so corrupt that it feels no responsibility towards its citizens.

*

A recent best seller in the United States is titled ON BULLSHIT. (*) We learn here that most of what politicians, salesmen, advertisers, and academics say or write fully qualifies as bullshit. Nothing new in that. Most of Plato's dialogues say as much. If one were to write a history of bullshit, it would probably be the longest book in the world.

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(*) ON BULLSHIT by Harry G. Frankfurt. See also, YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US: THE TRUTH ABOUT BULLSHIT by Laura Penny; and DEEPER INTO BULLSHIT by G.A. Cohen. It is to be noted that both Frankfurt and Cohen are noted contemporary philosophers.

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[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

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When I thought of myself as a good Armenian, I was no better than a bad Turk; and I know now that it was my own assessment of myself as a good Armenian that allowed me to behave like a bad Turk – minus the fez, shalvar, mustache, and yataghan.

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At all times and everywhere our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge, and we have a tendency to overestimate the value of what we know and underestimate the value of what we don’t know.

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Only fools assess themselves as smart, and only swine represent themselves as noble specimens of humanity.

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All that talk about 20/20 vision is nonsense, humbug, and b.s. I don’t demand infallibility from our leaders; but I have every right to expect honesty. No matter how you slice it, a military defeat is not a moral victory, and not all tragedies are acts of god.

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On a radio program on children’s poetry this morning, I overheard the following quotation: “There is some shit / I will not eat!” That’s what I call good poetry – rhythm, music, and words that once heard are never forgotten.

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[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

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Censorship promotes mediocrity and when the mediocre are in charge, excellence becomes their greatest enemy.

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A Simenon characters remarks: "It's a tough job to be a human being." It's tougher being an Armenian, and what makes it tougher is fellow Armenians.

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When the dishonest fail to convert or brainwash the honest, they silence them.

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Denis Donikian: "There are those among us today who have only one ear that hears only one voice: their own."

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The most unbearable prospect for an Armenians is to be proven wrong, as if his infallibility were such a universally acknowledged fact that no sane person who dare to question it. And we have infallible men because we have infallible institutions.

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When two infallible men contradict each other, eiher one or both of them are bound to be wrong.

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Intolerance means violating free speech. Violating free speech means killing ideas; and where ideas are killed, people will be massacred; and there is no such thing as the massacre of only the guilty. It is not in the nature of those who commit massacres to discriminate the innocent from the guilty.

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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, September 01, 2005

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ELEGY

A sea of tears

Will not raise

A single dead

And a thousand years of hatred

Will not reform

A single Turk

And yet

We continue to lament our dead

And to hate the Turk.

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Anyone who has loved and hated knows that love and hatred are quintessentially misleading emotions.

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To be brainwashed means to be unable to move beyond propaganda.

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When we criticize another we assume we don’t have his faults.

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A fanatic is one who is incapable of detecting contradictions within himself, and whenever these contradictions are pointed out to him, he becomes deaf, dumb, and blind.

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To speak from the gutter means to threaten those who dare to contradict you that they too may be dragged down there.

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GOOD OLD DAYS

When he was alive Homer was not a best seller; neither did he submit his works to an editor.

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Denis Donikian: “The most pedestrian ideas come to us under the banner of tolerance. Likewise, the most rabid intolerance is promoted in the name of love.”

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[ara baliozian]

Friday, September 02, 2005

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Whenever as a boy I learned to appreciate a new symphony by Beethoven I thought I had overcome another barrier separating me from civilization. Then, one day, I woke up and found myself surrounded by barbarians.

*

It’s not easy being right in an Armenian environment because the sources of most of our contradictions are conflicting self –interests compounded by oversized egos and undersized brains.

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If you behave in an undiplomatic manner in a diplomatic environment, you will be recalled and fired by your superiors. And if you behave like a barbarian in a civilized environment you will be ignored because some civilized people may not share your taste for the gutter. You may now be in a better position to understand why I choose to ignore some of my critics (if you will forgive the overstatement).

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It is not enough being right; one must be right in a right way.

*

Where everyone claims to be right, some are bound to be wrong; and where everyone asserts infallibility, everybody will be wrong.

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[ara baliozian]

Saturday, September 03, 2005

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Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), political philosopher: "The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the Revolution." This may explain why (according to Hagop Garabents) our revolutionaries were willing to shed their blood for freedom a hundred years ago but they are now afraid of free speech.

*

I may know what I want today, but for the life of me I don't understand why I wanted what I wanted yesterday, and I have no idea what I will want tomorrow.

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There is an old American saying: "Every shut eye ain't asleep." Likewise, just because he ain't buried it don't mean he ain't dead.

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Anyone can forgive the forgivable. The trick is forgiving the unforgivable.

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I am willing to trust a good Armenian and a good Turk, and what I trust in them is not their Armenian or Turkish identity but their goodness, which recognizes no geographic boundaries.

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[ara baliozian]

Sunday, September 04, 2005

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Tyrants who slaughter writers, and editors who silence them, belong to the same species of swine and it makes no difference if they are Turks, Germans, Russians, or, for that matter, Armenians.

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I am an Armenian and you are an Armenian. Now then, can you give me a single reason why I should trust you? Because, for the life of me, I can’t think of a single reason why you should trust me.

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In a dishonest environment all assessments of the past will be dismissed as 20/20 vision, of the future as alarmist, and of the present as based on misinformation. Which simply means, to be pro-status quo or pro-establishment is to be infallible, and to be anti-status-quo or anti-establishment means being consistently wrong.

*

During the Ottoman phase of our existence, those who predicted the massacres were dismissed as alarmist, and during the Soviet era those who said Stalin was a ruthless tyrant were labeled as anti-Soviet. Which means, it would be far more accurate to say that to be pro-establishment is to be consistently wrong, perhaps because our men at the top and their hirelings happen to be moral morons, political nonentities, and intellectual midgets -- that is to say, swine.

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[ara baliozian]

Monday, September 05, 2005

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Hitler was dead wrong. Amnesia does not always follow extermination. Everyone remembers the dodo bird. That of course is no consolation to the dodo, or for that matter to the dinosaurs.

*

And speaking of dinosaurs: god is less of an ecologist and more of a terrorist. He has exterminated countless species and killed millions of innocent civilians by means of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes, and miscellaneous other natural disasters and “acts of god.”

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Under fascist as well as democratic regimes the masses are educated enough to be brainwashed. Hence the old adage, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

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The authentic critic begins by thinking against himself. Those who can think only against others are not critics but propagandists, commissars, and fanatics.

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One man’s sacred cow is another’s shish kebab.

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[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

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There are two kinds of ideas: those that bind and those that liberate. You may now guess which are more popular.

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The dupes of priests, mullahs, gurus, and witch doctors will always outnumber those who have mastered the difficult art of thinking for themselves.

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To think for oneself also means to think against oneself.

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There are those who cling to old ideas the way a drowning man is said to cling to anything, including a venomous serpent.

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My parents survived the Turks. I am now busy trying to survive my fellow Armenians.

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“You learn to grow up,” I remember to have read somewhere, “on the day you have a good laugh at yourself.”

But to laugh at oneself is as difficult as to think against oneself.

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To understand reality begins with the realization that we are not the center of creation and that planet Earth is only a speck of dust in the universe, and man is only a speck of dust on earth. Now then, can you calculate the dimensions of your problems, the problems of your tribe, and problems of the human race?

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Religions have tried to teach love and tolerance and they have failed. But they have succeeded, and succeeded brilliantly, in teaching hatred and intolerance. Figure that one out if you can.

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Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), French poet: “Hatred and egoism have only one homeland. Brotherhood has none.”

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[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

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The problem with being a famous writer is that you think twice before saying anything that may detract from your popularity. But a writer who places his fame and fortune above honesty is no better than an expensive whore. Which is why I feel justified in bragging about my status as a slum-dwelling failure.

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Somewhere Zarian differentiates refugees from exiles. An exile is an exile by choice, he writes. By contrast, a refugee is driven by necessity. Dante, Byron, and Thomas Mann were exiles. As the offspring of refugees from the Ottoman Empire, I fully qualify as a double refugee - compliments of our enemies and my brothers.

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An Armenian writer has as much of a future in an Armenian environment as a sardine in a pool of ravenous barracudas.

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An eye for an eye is a legal principle that can be enforced only between equals. When a tyrant deals with a dissident or a scribbler with a boss, bishops, benefactor and his flunkies, it's more like an eyebrow for both eyes, ears, limbs, lungs, liver, heart, and a few other vital organs thrown in for good measure.

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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, September 08, 2005

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“Never trust someone who goes out of his way to be nice to you – he is after something,” an older friend once warned me. I dismissed his warning as that of a cynic and forgot all about it. A big mistake on my part.

*

When at the turn of the last century the Great Powers expressed concern about our condition within the Empire and took our side against the oppressors, we did not question their motives. A big mistake on our part for which millions of innocent civilians paid dearly.

*

When you shake hands with a brown-noser, count your fingers and immediately after wash your hands with soap and water. If his nose is brown, the rest of him can’t be white.

*

When in his initial phase as a writer Zarian said some very nice things about the Armenia voki, he was believed, respected, published, and achieved some degree of popularity. But when he realized he had been wrong and was not afraid to say so, he was dismissed by his contemporaries as a loudmouth egomaniac and acquired the status of a non-person.

*

All religions have produced their share of prophets, martyrs, and saints – that doesn’t make them the only true religion. All political leaders and parties have had their share of partisans -- that doesn’t make them superior to any other political party.

*

Political leaders know that all they have to do to acquire followers is to utter such clichés as “You are the brains of the people,” or “You have leadership qualities,” or “You belong to a superior race,” or “You are the Chosen people.” Of course, it takes some degree of cunning combined with some kind of ruthless stupidity to voice such nonsense and believe in it, and when it comes to stupidity, it has been said, “even the gods cannot compete with men.”

*

“If you want our support, you must learn to kiss ass,” is the unspoken message in the criticism leveled against me. I was there once and I have no desire to revisit the place. All I want to do now is echo Zarian’s warning, “Danger, danger, danger!”

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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, September 08, 2005

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“Never trust someone who goes out of his way to be nice to you – he is after something,” an older friend once warned me. I dismissed his warning as that of a cynic and forgot all about it. A big mistake on my part.

*

When at the turn of the last century the Great Powers expressed concern about our condition within the Empire and took our side against the oppressors, we did not question their motives. A big mistake on our part for which millions of innocent civilians paid dearly.

*

When you shake hands with a brown-noser, count your fingers and immediately after wash your hands with soap and water. If his nose is brown, the rest of him can’t be white.

*

When in his initial phase as a writer Zarian said some very nice things about the Armenia voki, he was believed, respected, published, and achieved some degree of popularity. But when he realized he had been wrong and was not afraid to say so, he was dismissed by his contemporaries as a loudmouth egomaniac and acquired the status of a non-person.

*

All religions have produced their share of prophets, martyrs, and saints – that doesn’t make them the only true religion. All political leaders and parties have had their share of partisans -- that doesn’t make them superior to any other political party.

*

Political leaders know that all they have to do to acquire followers is to utter such clichés as “You are the brains of the people,” or “You have leadership qualities,” or “You belong to a superior race,” or “You are the Chosen people.” Of course, it takes some degree of cunning combined with some kind of ruthless stupidity to voice such nonsense and believe in it, and when it comes to stupidity, it has been said, “even the gods cannot compete with men.”

*

“If you want our support, you must learn to kiss ass,” is the unspoken message in the criticism leveled against me. I was there once and I have no desire to revisit the place. All I want to do now is echo Zarian’s warning, “Danger, danger, danger!”

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[ara baliozian]

Friday, September 09, 2005

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A BRIEF HISTORY

OF THE ARMENIAN NATION

===============================

If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. If you don’t live by the sword, you will die on the cross.

*

Two Armenians were having a quiet conversation. It could happen.

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Advice to a young Armenian writer:

Don’t write; but if you write, don’t publish; but if you publish, be prepared to perish.

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Being an Armenian is hard work. I wouldn’t apply for the job even if they promised a fat salary, the very best in fringe benefits, and a sky-is-the-limit expense account.

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I could have been a far better writer if I had had critics instead of riffraff hurling insults at me. But alas, it looks like I am destined to remain a minor, negligible, and forgettable scribbler.

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Self-esteem is not a reliable index of worth, in the same way that dogmatism is not an index of certainty.

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There is a natural tendency in the brainwashed to resent anyone who refuses to be brainwashed.

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[Takoush]

Friday, September 09, 2005

***************************************

Two Armenians were having a quiet conversation. It could happen.

*

Advice to a young Armenian writer:

Don’t write; but if you write, don’t publish; but if you publish, be prepared to perish.

*

Being an Armenian is hard work. I wouldn’t apply for the job even if they promised a fat salary, the very best in fringe benefits, and a sky-is-the-limit expense account.

*

 

The first paragraph is so funndy Ara. It could actually happen you know. Far fetched from happening but it could happen?

 

The second paragraph is probably very true. With one exception. When you die however, then you'll wish to be immortal.

 

 

 

The third paragraph is also funny. I really like your sense of humor.

[Takoush]

Friday, September 09, 2005

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A BRIEF HISTORY

OF THE ARMENIAN NATION

*

Two Armenians were having a quiet conversation. It could happen.

*

Advice to a young Armenian writer:

Don’t write; but if you write, don’t publish; but if you publish, be prepared to perish.

*

Being an Armenian is hard work. I wouldn’t apply for the job even if they promised a fat salary, the very best in fringe benefits, and a sky-is-the-limit expense account.

*

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I forgot one more thing to my previous post to add. Should we laugh or cry really?

 

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, September 10, 2005

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PUNDITS

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A pundit who is very critical of Turks, Jews, and the West in general but never of his fellow Armenians is no better than a one-eyed Jack who sees evil only in others, never in himself. When I once met one of these pundits face to face I asked him if he had any political ambitions, and he replied, yes, he thought he could be useful to the regime in Yerevan. When I dismissed our leadership as a bunch of opportunists and crooks, he said he was willing to concede that, very much like the rest of mankind, we were not perfect. But why stress the imperfections of others and cover up our own? I demanded to know. Because, he explained, at this stage in our history, we needed help and encouragement, not opposition and obstruction. Since he was not a lawyer, he did not know or pretended not to know that if you help a crook you become an accessory.

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In an encounter with another one of our pundits, I was told that our only solution was to get rid of all our politicians and to replace them with our own religious leaders. When I said that would be like trying to extinguish a fire by pouring gasoline over it, he changed the subject.

*

The trouble with some of our pundits is that they seem to be totally unaware of the fact that all our major writers, from Khorenatsi in the 5th century to Massikian in our own days have been very critical of our political as well as religious leaders; and I suspect one reason they don't read our writers is that they think, as intellectual giants, they have no use for the input of midgets. I should also add that some of them might read English, French, German, Russian, and sometimes even Turkish fluently, but not Armenian.

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[ara baliozian]

Sunday, September 11, 2005

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CONTRADICTIONS

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If we are smart, why do we treat one another like idiots? On more than one occasion I have myself been treated like an idiot by idiots.

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If we are civilized, why do we behave like barbarians?

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Am I a failure if I cannot educate the uneducated, teach tolerance to fanatics, and civilize barbarians? And if I am a failure, how successful have we been collectively in civilizing the barbarians who oppressed and massacred us? What if it was the barbarians who, as our lords and masters, were more successful in recreating us in their own image? What if these so-called barbarians are now ahead of us today?

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Smartass is not smart, and smart is not intelligent; and hurling verbal abuse at Turks or at fellow Armenians (our two national sports) doesn’t even qualify as smartass.

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It is a universally shared human weakness to prefer flattery to criticism, but it is a dangerous addiction to prefer lies to truth.

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